Revolution Trains travelled to Brighton recently at the kind invitation of Govia Thameslink Railway and Beacon Rail to carry out research for our forthcoming Class 313 unit in N gauge.
The trip enabled us to check measurements and details of those units still in service after more than 40 years. This information will then be sent to the factory designers and we anticipate that CAD drawings should be ready soon after Chinese New Year.
The units in operation now on Southern’s Coastway routes do have some detail differences to the class as-built – the pantographs have been removed, there are some modern additions to the underframe – but these were all clearly identified and explained to us by our host Glen, and we’d like to thank him for sharing his expertise.
Once the work was done we returned to Brighton’s magnificent train shed and decided to take a short ride to Lewes, one of the destinations still served by the venerable Class 313s.
Once CADs are received we will publish them for comment, and we are expecting to open the order book soon after to enable tooling to commence.